KATHY REICHS - 206 BONES

“ Hello! Anyone! ”

A bout of trembling gripped me. I hugged my body, felt my arm bones knock my ribs. My skin was cold and clammy to the touch .

Like a corpse at the morgue .

Panic flared anew .

I’m going to die. Alone in a dark tomb. No one will know where I went. Where the flesh is rotting from my bones .

I thought of the tweaker who’d frozen to death on his porch. How long could I survive before hypothermia killed me?

I hated my captor. Hated him for me. For Katy. For Harry. Hated him with a fury born of years spent with the battered dead. Hated him for the throat-slashed wives. The cigarette-burned babies. The bedsored grannies .

“ Who are you?” I shrieked .

Forget him. Activity brings warmth. Warmth brings life. Use the anger. Move. Get out .

I took a deep breath .

Took another, shifting to my nose .

The musty smell was stronger here. Mold. Mildew. Creatures long dead .

Setting the skull on the floor, I rolled to my belly and began dragging myself forward, using the odor as a guide .

My raw elbows screamed. My injured leg spasmed .

Ignore the pain .

Arm-thrust. Pull .

Arm-thrust. Pull .

Soft echoes suggested a more enclosed space. A wall ahead?

Six thrusts, then my chest landed on bulk. Propping on my right elbow, I explored the object with my left hand. Gingerly. Careful not to move it .

Lumpy L, scaly with mold. Underside flat with a heel-shaped protuberance at one end .

A boot .

I reached left .

A second boot lay beside the first .

Heart hammering, I danced my fingers upward over mold-crusted fabric that crumbled at my touch. Running beneath the fabric were long tubular objects. I recognized their shape. Their meaning .

Leg bones .

Dear God, I was feeling up a corpse .

I pictured the body .

Swinging my legs right, I inched upward along the side of the torso, blindly probing in the darkness. My fingers picked out heavy round buttons .

I counted. Visualized. A jacket?

I applied pressure with my palm .

The jacket overlaid a series of rigid arcs. Lumps and knobs. A collapsed rib cage. Vertebrae .

I tried lifting the jacket’s lower edge. My effort kicked up a tsunami of scent, rank and earthy and reeking of death .

I changed to breathing through my mouth .

Elbowing and kneeing in reverse, I cleared the boots and shifted left .

Beside the first, my trembling fingers encountered a second set of footwear. Trousers. Another jacket. A fleshless skull, spiderweb hair clinging to the crown .

Again, I hitched backward and dragged myself left .

A third corpse lay head to foot with the others. Or had, until the skull detached and sought new ground .

My hands recoiled in horror .

Mother of God! My prison was a crypt, more frigid and black than I could have imagined possible. Filled with complete and utter silence .

And decaying bodies .

Questions kaleidoscoped in my brain. Hysterical. Pointless .

How long? How many? Who?

Using my bound legs, I hitched myself aft of the third corpse and dragged myself left, hands fumbling in the dark .

Irrational, but I had to know .

Beyond the first three dead I found four more .

Brailleing for clues, I determined that everyone had been entombed wearing boots, belted pants, and jackets with heavy round buttons, probably metal. Four jackets were adorned with medals and insignia .

Dead soldiers?

It didn’t matter. What did matter was the possibility that I’d soon join their ranks .

My breath began to catch, my chest to heave .

Reason weighed in .

No tears! Think!

A single word exploded in my brain .

Edges!

A desperate ghoul, I raided the dead and placed my booty in a pile. Medals. Buckles. Insignias. Three lower jaws with the front teeth in place .

Shifting to a hunch-sit, I spread my knees, leaned forward, and began sawing at my ankle bindings. One cord was all I needed .

One .

One .

How long did I gnaw away at those ropes? Long .

As with my wrists, it finally happened. A gentle yielding of pressure. A pop. My legs flew apart .

Electricity exploded from neuron to neuron .

I wanted to scream .

To shout for joy .

To kill the bastard who’d done this to me .

I wanted to escape .

Rounding my back, I massaged and flexed both ankles .

When blood flow returned, I eased onto all fours .

Not bad .

I flexed a knee, testing the injured leg .

Tender. Tolerable .

During my corpse crawl, I’d noted that the dead had been placed with their heads or feet to a wall. Apparently, I was at one end of the tomb .

Might a door be at the other?

Arms and legs rubber, I crawled toward the spot where I’d first regained consciousness, left hand periodically skimming the brick. One step. Five. Twelve .

Twenty steps. My outstretched palm smacked brick. Another wall was meeting the long wall at ninety degrees. I’d reached the other end of the tomb .

I began sidestepping right, hand groping for a door .

Sudden horrifying thought. If the bodies had been simply bricked in, there’d have been no need of a door. No one was ever entering again. Or leaving .

My tortured brain rode another illogical wave. Poe. “The Cask of Amontillado. ”

But Montresor was caught .

No. Fortunato died. Alone. Underground .

My movements became frenzied. Sitting on my haunches, I hand-swept the brick in wide jagged arcs .

Someone put you here. There had to be a way in .

There has to be a way out .

I almost gasped when my fingers brushed something set into the masonry. Flat. Smooth .

Wood!

I groped for a handle .

Zip .

A latch .

No go .

My frozen fingertips were sending little to my brain. I rubbed my hands together fast. Some feeling returned .

I began anew, more slowly. More carefully .

Eventually, my trembling fingers picked out an irregularity. Traced it .

My brain tallied the tactile, threw up a visual. A crack, outlining a door maybe two feet square .

Frantic, I began clawing at the gap with my nails. The narrow space was packed with a hard, crumbly substance .

Think, Brennan!

Fumbling back through the dark, I gathered my macabre assemblage. Then I scramble-crawled back to the door and began hacking and gouging .

Periodically, I’d roll to my back and hammer the wood with my feet. Or throw my weight from all fours, connecting with a shoulder or hip .

Sounds filled the stillness. The clink of my pirated tools. The tick of mortar falling on brick. The wheeze of air in and out of my mouth .

I was sweat-soaked and panting when the door finally popped free and dropped with a clunk .

I inched to the edge and peered out .

CLUNK.

I raised my lids.

The window shade was a muted gray rectangle outlined by strips of sluggish daylight. Again. War of the Toxic Ham Salad: Day Three .